BBC’s Royal Collection: A feast for royal family fans

BBC’s new “Royal Collection” is a veritable feast for Anglophiles who are fascinated with the British royals. The four-disc set has interesting tidbits from medieval times to the present, though the emphasis starts with Queen Victoria and finishes with Prince William.

Some basic observations: The royals have run the gamut from dutiful to profligate, but most have not been very good parents. So a strain of dysfunction has been passed down through the generations, resulting in some very odd behavior.

Here’s a rundown of the four discs:

Queen Victoria’s Children: The three episodes follow the lives of the four sons and five daughters born to Victoria and her beloved consort, Albert, in the mid-1800s. Victoria and Albert both had difficult childhoods, so they were determined that their children would be raised with a rigid set of values. Even more important, in a time when the royal families on the continent were not faring well, Victoria and Albert wanted to present the appearance of a normal, contented family.

It was only a façade. Victoria didn’t like babies, referring to them as “froglike.” As the children got older, she had an almost “pathological” need to control their lives.

The first episode gives an overall view of the children’s lives. Episode 2 explores the lives of the five daughters, who, in spite of their mother’s rigid expectations, managed to carve lives for themselves that allowed them some latitude. The third episode focuses on the four sons, who rebelled in various ways. Bertie, the heir, became a slave to his appetites: women, drinking, eating and gambling.

King George and Queen Mary, The Royals Who Rescued the Monarchy: George ascended to the throne upon the death of his father, Bertie, in 1910. His older brother, Albert, was the original heir, but died before his father did. George was barely educated and wasn’t all that bright. Even so, he managed to be a good king with the help of his strong wife, Princess Mary of Teck (a part of Germany), who’d originally been intended for Albert. They had one girl and five boys, and George, like his grandfather, was very hard on his children.

George and Mary saw the country through World War I and the uncomfortable reality of having to fight George’s first cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm, with whom he had been close in their younger days. Because of that German tie, George officially changed the royal surname from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor.

Mary, who was a minor German royal before marrying George, was a “ruthless survivor,” according to this documentary. She helped George carve out a new role for the couple — the public “walkabouts” that are so common for today’s royals.

When their son, David, abdicated to marry “the woman I love,” Wallis Simpson, Mary made sure he was not allowed back in England to cause problems for the new king, his younger brother.

Elizabeth’s Coronation: The current queen’s June 1953 coronation was a very big deal in England, which still was recovering from World War II. A party was needed to cheer them up, and what a party it was! This disc goes into lots of detail about the traditions of the coronation and the vast preparations for it. It was the first coronation to be televised, which meant there was a special emphasis on everything going just right.

How to be a Prince: This was my least favorite disc. The documentary was made on the occasion of Prince William’s 21st birthday in 2003. Seeing him as a young man, and listening to a lot of speculation on the kind of woman he would marry, comes off rather lame when we all know that he is happily married and expecting his first child. Still, this could be interesting to someone who is not familiar with William’s background.